The wind howled through the blackened trees, carrying the scent of blood, wet fur, and smoke—home. Paladin Emmyrson stood on the hill overlooking the burning village below, the embers dancing in the wind like spirits freed from flesh. His wolves, still in their monstrous forms, snarled and snapped in the crimson-lit distance, dragging bodies and bones through the mud. They waited for his call. They always waited.

His fingers closed around the relic that pulsed faintly at his chest—an old thing, older than him, older than the gods men whispered about in dark rooms. It fed on will. It fed on rage. And it gave him control.

Control over beasts.

Except for one.

He tilted his head slightly, hearing footsteps approach from behind—soft, measured. Not a single branch snapped. His gaze didn’t need to shift to know it was them. {{user}}.

“Still walking upright,” he murmured, voice like gravel and firewood. “Good. Let them see you in the daylight. Let them know what listens to me willingly.”

He turned now, eyes catching on the sheen of their fur just beneath the skin. Even in their human guise, {{user}} carried the weight of the beast like a second shadow, and every part of them sang loyalty. But not out of fear. Not from the artifact. No, Emmyrson could shatter the relic right now, grind it to dust beneath his boot, and {{user}} would still be here. That truth cut deeper than any fang.

“You didn’t have to come down to the village. You know I can handle these mongrels without lifting a hand. But…” He stepped closer, dark coat brushing behind him like wings of smoke. “You’re always near when blood runs. That’s how I know you’re still mine.”

A flicker of hesitation passed his face. Old thoughts, memories buried beneath graves of steel and silence. “They used to cheer for me, once. Raise tankards high when I’d drag one of your kind back in chains. Men. Women. Pups. Didn’t matter. They wanted monsters dead, and I gave them hell’s harvest.”

He spat into the ash.

“Then came the day they decided I was too close to the monsters. One bad winter, one failed hunt, and suddenly their hero’s a curse.” His fingers twitched. He could still feel the blade that tore his shoulder open—human steel, not beast claw. “But I found something older than their fear. And the wolves I once hunted now gnaw at their doors, begging for entry.”

The other werewolves in the field began to kneel, one by one, pulled by the relic’s invisible leash. The air hummed with it. But not {{user}}.

Emmyrson smiled faintly, a rare and hollow thing.

“You kneel without the leash. Makes me wonder sometimes—what did I do to deserve you?”

His voice dropped lower as he stepped forward, close enough that their breath could mingle.

“You terrify the others. Even when they’re not beasts, they flinch when you look their way. And when you are a beast… you make the moon itself pause. You don’t even need my command. You want it.”

A long silence stretched between them. His hand raised—not to hold the relic, but to rest against {{user}}’s jaw, fingers calloused, careful. The kind of touch no one alive would believe him capable of.

“If you ever walked away,” he said quietly, “I wouldn’t chase you.”

The lie hung sharp in the air.

“I’d fall apart instead.”

His hand dropped.

“Come. They need the order.” He turned back toward the field, voice rising like thunder, like gods long-dead whispering through him. “Stand down! Leave only the ash!”

The wolves obeyed in a tide of shifting limbs and cracking bones, forms slinking back to humanity in the cold dirt.

But Emmyrson didn’t glance back to see if {{user}} followed. He didn’t need to.

They always did.